Sunday, 20 May 2012

Part
two continues by exploring the themes of theft, sexual misconduct, and cruelty
as the basic elements of unethical behaviour.

In
exploring these three areas of unethical behaviour we might reach the conclusion
that actively practising their opposites could be a good idea. Instead of
killing, that is taking life, we might see that preserving life and creating
the right conditions for healthy life to emerge are the logical counter. If
we were to take this logical conclusion on board, then some of the ethical
behaviour that I outline in part one would make more sense. With that in mind, let's begin the next phase of our meal together.

Taking what is not given (give me my fork back)

Theft
doesn’t require a huge amount of discussion. Outside of stealing and robbery
and so on, it is generally an issue of being clearer in our choices. Taking
paper from work, or stealing a pen from a shop due to mindlessly placing it in
your pocket are both examples of taking what is not given.

There
is a need to apply care to the small things. We are asked to be more present in
how we are occupying the spaces we move in. Potentially unseen consequences to
our actions can be countered by living with integrity and striving for
impeccability in our actions coupled with conscious choices. In lateral
thinking puzzles there is a classic scenario designed to see if you would
return a lost wallet full of cash if you found it with no ID inside. Another
concerns helping an old lady up the stairs, even if it entails missing your bus.
Right Action is in great part the returning of the wallet, assisting that old
lady and basically being willing to help when it’s needed. These are actually forms of
generosity.

Greed
is the opposite of generosity and a form of theft too. We may have money and
feel the right to purchase whatever we desire, ‘I’ve earned it, it’s my money’,
you say. But greed is all about taking too much. It is having a lack of dignity
in what you consume too. We become like a leech, sucking the life out of the
world in order to feed a mindless hunger for more. There are countless manifestations
of this. Among the most topical at present are obesity and vulture funds, but perhaps
bankers are today’s best example of taking too much. The 1% that has the vast majority of the world’s wealth is a blindingly clear example of why greed is
wrong. For that 1% to own all they do, they have to have taken it from the 99%,
and even though our economic system congratulates them for it and western society
has legalized such behaviour, we all know it is wrong and bad for the 100% in the end.

Generosity
counteracts our selfish tendencies and helps us to loosen our small self
complex. The small self never has enough. It defends itself from perceived outside
enemies and believes that it must barricade itself in, in order to protect its
precious wealth. We have a collective blind spot with regards to wealth, failing
to see the real value of things. This is mirrored in our economic system which only
values growth, failing to give proper value to well-being, the environment,
creativity and pretty much anything that cannot produce financial gain. It’s an
extremely impoverished view of humanity and the planet that has to be changed ASAP.
Bhutan’s happiness index is famously hailed as an alternative, but whether it’s
workable or not, a different global index that values quality over quantity
must be possible without all out revolution.

Greed
on a basic level is perhaps simply recognising those moments when we wish to
indulge and noticing what is really going on. Meditation is in great part
learning to first resist urges, then to relax with urges, and then to see into
what drives urges, in order to create change. Greed is often the impulse to
grab at, to possess, to hold onto and cherish. Yet, as many of us will
recognise, once you hold onto that thing which was so desired, it starts to
lose its appeal. We sort of squeeze the life out of it. The most memorable and
attractive of experience is best embraced with a light touch. We can have a
similar attitude towards our possessions…and our roles. We will feel all the
better for doing so.

Buddhism is not Jainism, so extremes are not welcome. Living in
false poverty and denying ourselves life’s pleasures is not the right direction
to take. Learning to live within our shared means is however. Finding balance
in how we use our resources and how we use the Earth’s resources is
surprisingly uncomplicated. Simple questions put us in touch with what ought to be obvious; How much should I take? Do I really need a new car, TV, wife, etc? Could I share some of my earnings with those less fortunate? What's really important here?

Sexual misconduct (What are you doing with that chicken, sir?)

Ethical
sexual behaviour is predicated on integrity and honesty. Free sexual expression
and exploration should be the right of each adult individual, but doing so
without integrity and honesty leads to all manner of mess and confusion. The
simple strategy for avoiding such sticky messes is clear communication and the
respect for spaces within a relationship that allow such communication to take
place.

Personal
sexual relationships are cauldrons in which boil the ingredients of our less
developed selves. Desire plays out, it waxes and wanes and temptations emerge.
Sexual relationships are delicate affairs that require trust, mutual respect, and
a whole lot of care. The desire for quick fixes, for a partner to satisfy our
needs, for sex to always be perfect, for our partner to never change, or to
change faster than they are currently doing, these and many, many other
thoughts and forces push at the container that is an intimate relationship. How
we address these impulses and forces determines whether we are able to move
forward together in a way that increases mutual understanding. Whether you’re
straight, gay, bi, it really doesn’t matter. What engenders mutual care and
growth within a relationship where sex is present, is genuine, open
communication and clear agreements.

As
adults we need to be responsible enough to be extremely clear about what we
desire and how we go about feeding those desires. Through clear open dialogue
we can avoid harming each other. It’s so simple and yet we mess it up time and
time again.

Relationships
end, people move in different directions. Honouring your partner, whether of
fifteen years, or a single night, is an act of care, whoever and however they
might be. This is part of ethical sexual behaviour: not using others for our
own needs.

There
are countless examples of sexual misconduct instigated by ordained members of
the Buddhist community too. The issue though is not usually the sex. The
suffering that emerges is almost always due to lies, lack of transparency and betrayal.
These events can be highly damaging to a community whose purpose should be to
engender understanding, share knowledge and provide a community that supports
practice. The roles we inhabit have rules and when those roles involve leadership, we must be doubly attentive to what's important. Satisfying carnal desires at the expense of others is not one of them.

The
same is true of a relationship. Breaking agreements, sleeping around, lying and
deception create confusion and mistrust. Is it worth indulging in that
short-term pleasure for the long-term harm it causes? Perhaps it’s better to
reflect on such questions before the occasion arises.

I
want to remind readers that I am not an authority on Buddhist matters. I simply
write about my own understanding and the conclusions I have reached after many
years of practising a variety of Buddhist traditions and hanging out with all
manner of Buddhist organisations, schools and other. Right Action brings us
into the field of behavioural adjustments, and is often equated with morality,
a touchy topic, which I will freely explore with my own ideas. When first approaching Right Action as the next blog post, I was not at all motivated as I wanted to avoid repeating the themes covered in Right Speech. Well, the social dimension opened up the topic for me and I found myself having something to say. As far as I am concerned meditation practice must be an eventual avenue to engaging socially, which is essentially the point I make below. That said, let’s
eat.

A little antipasto

Applying
awareness and presence changes the dynamic we have with experience, and our
interaction with it: is this not obvious? Moments are not enough however; we
need to build capacity as Ken McLeod reminds us.

Avoidance
of rigid systems of behavioural and therefore social control is highly
appropriate for the day and age we live in. But how do we decide whether our
actions are appropriate, or inappropriate, integrous or otherwise? Here’s a
clue: look at the bigger picture and apply copious amounts of awareness and
engagement.

Avoiding
excessive moral lecturing on how we should or should not inhabit our bodies and
actions, is not only a right, but a must if we are to exhibit any degree of
autonomy and make the path our own. But where should we lead our wagons?

Aperitivo

Right
Action is divided into three areas. It concerns the avoidance, or elimination,
of killing, theft and sexual misconduct. That sounds easy enough, right?
However, both killing and theft have less explicit aspects that make their
total avoidance, well, unavoidable. Sexual misconduct is less ambiguous and
easier to respect as a moral code one may choose to adopt, although I would be
cautious in laying out non-negotiable moral edicts here and strongly believe
religion has no place in our bedrooms.

But
what is the motivation for moderating our actions if we do not succumb to holy
authority, or guilt? Surely, in this day and age, we should be able to do as we
please, as long as it doesn’t harm anybody, right? This is valid, but we need
to pay attention to the bigger picture, and for most of us, that is simply not
happening enough.

As
with Right Speech, Right Action emerges out of Right View and Right Intent.
Therefore the underlying motivation for taking care with our actions is to
reduce suffering. This is in keeping with the Four Truths.This applies at a local level with regards to our
immediate circle of influence and extends to the social impact our choices and
actions have on the wider world. With their often unseen consequences, the
impact of our daily choices are of real importance. In fact the nature of not
seeing is one of the key failings that permits us to avoid assuming
responsibility, and therefore authority, for our actions.Yet, once you are aware, what comes next?

Soup arrives

I
remember when I first encountered Buddhism in the flesh, years back, at a
Tibetan Buddhist centre. I recall studying the Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life by Shantideva and was impressed by the immense depth that was given to
describing the precise rules and laws that governed the life and behaviour of a
bodhisattva; a Sanskrit term for a person dedicated to leading all beings to
the awakened state of freedom. How difficult it must be to achieve such an
exalted and super-human condition I thought, and what a memory and what
discipline an individual would need in order to put so many rules and so many
steps into practice. Although many of the themes that ran through the text were
impressive and in part inspirational, I was turned off by the excessive
rigidity of it all.

In
truth the text was my introduction to the world of super-human Buddhism, which
I have written about on several occasions. It was a window onto the world of
wishful thinking and non-human aspirations. It was a perspective from religious
Buddhism.

I
consider myself to be fortunate to have been born into the west, in a modern
world, where superstition and religious mores do not dominate our interior
mental spaces and collective discourse. In the west applying such a mandate of
rigid morality is only really appropriate in its complete form in a monastic
setting, and in my experience and observations, produces various psychological
responses that tend to manifest in the form of either insecurity and a sense of
inferiority, or an obsessive and mindless dedication to a religious identity
and code. Each to his or her own however, and if such an approach works for
some, great, for the vast majority though, it does not.

The
Bodhisattva as an ideal seems to have been an attempt to bridge the often
self-absorbed and isolationist practice of an ascetic or renunciate monastic to
engagement with the everyday world of regular folk. I am currently reading
about the development of Mahayana Buddhism, which is where the ideal of the Bodhisattva first emerges, and so far what I have gathered is that this movement within
Buddhism occurred as a response to the separation between the monastics and lay
practitioners and as a response to the need to make Buddhism more relevant and
accessible to lay practitioners. The Mahayana was also a calling to a higher
purpose beyond self-liberation, where individuals who awakened were traditionally
given the name of Arahat and defined by their ability to escape the wheel of
suffering and incarnation on the earthly plane. That is to say, you’re free,
off you go now and don’t come back. In theory at least these guys didn’t have
to concern themselves with the unawakened world, which was left behind.

The
bodhisattva as a modality implies the willingness to stretch our imagination
and subsequent actions (including practice) to include the world at large.
There is recognition that within the truth of interdependence, we are all
intimately connected to each other, and to the world we inhabit, and therefore
it is not enough for us to seek freedom from suffering for ourselves, but it is
instead for us to bridge our experience to include all life. This is quite
clearly an extremely noble aspiration. But, how does it look realistically and
without the hyperbolic religious formulation that we can find in many
traditional Mahayana texts, which evolve into ever more extreme and
mythological images and ideals?

In
a way, Right Action represents a simple modal for extending our personal
pursuit of freedom, awakening, and the end of dukkha, to others. I would dare
to say that developing bodhisattva aspirations is a natural stage in travelling
the path; sooner or later we mature enough to grasp that we must include others
in our circle of care. Right Action has been sold as a system for avoiding the
accumulation of negative karma, but that seems to point towards a rather
selfish, and nowadays, extremely abstract motivation for changing one’s
behaviour.

To
observe the threefold model of Right Action as disciplines beyond a simple
moderation of our behaviour is to develop a deeper understanding of the
interdependent relationship between all forms of life. Additionally, it is a
call to consider others as having equal importance to ourselves. It is a maturation
of empathy to compassion. We evolve the ability to connect to another, to the
ability to know that ‘other’ is not separate from ‘me’ and that such boundaries
are part of the artificial edifice that surrounds the notion of a separate self.

First course

Right
Action is not a call to a forced morality then, but a teaching of the fact that
murder, theft and sexual misconduct cause suffering to ourselves, others and
society. We can talk about karma, but it doesn’t seem necessary because the
consequences of such actions are so clear and are condemned openly in all
societies.

When
Right Action is integrated into our way of being it leads us towards an
understanding that rules and laws, morality and do and don’ts are not the stuff
of realisation. They are in part about institutionalised and social control. On
a practice level a moral code functions as a pointer towards an area of life
that requires attention and examination, where we need to initially employ
restraint. That is not to say that organisational regulation and the implementation
of codes of conduct is a bad thing. Rather I am interested in the individual
and not organisations in these blog posts and on an individual level rigid external
rules tend to produce conformist or rebellious reaction, which miss the point
of why we should choose to moderate or modify our behaviour in the first place.

The
motivational force for determining an adjustment in the three arenas of action
comes naturally when it emerges from mindful, felt connection to the deepest
levels of our own individual human experience; as well as to the richness and
immense fragility and interconnection that defines the world around us.

Finally,
Right Action is strongly linked to the themes I raised in the post on Right
Speech. Thus, our actions should be marked by transparency, honesty and
attention. The application of mindful attention, care, and presence to our actions
is a core aspect of Right Action. For more on this, see Right Speech, P.2.

In meditation we can see through the illusion of past, present and future - our
experience becomes the continuity of nowness. The past is only an unreliable
memory held in the present. The future is only a projection of our present
conceptions. The present itself vanishes as soon as we try to grasp it. So why
bother with attempting to establish an illusion of solid ground?

The continual stream of new discovery, revelation
and inspiration which arises at every moment is the manifestation of our
clarity. We should learn to see everyday life as mandala - the luminous fringes
of experience which radiate spontaneously from the empty nature of our being.
The aspects of our mandala are the day-to-day objects of our life experience
moving in the dance or play of the universe. By this symbolism the inner
teacher reveals the profound and ultimate significance of being. Therefore we
should be natural and spontaneous, accepting and learning from everything. This
enables us to see the ironic and amusing side of events that usually irritate
us.

Wednesday, 9 May 2012

Speech
is energy in motion and it feeds movement. When we are mindless in our speech,
it tends to go out and feed ongoing patterns of fixed referencing that define
the roles we end up in, and identify with. These roles are multiple; an
interwoven network of positions that emerge through creative belief
manufacturing, the stabilising of dependable feelings, the fabrication of
pre-set emotional modes and the fixation of linguistic patterns that affirm our
stance in relationship to the fundamental symbols that make up our personal
world in all its fictitious glory.

Speech
is energy in motion. It feeds movement, and therefore, can lead us out of our
ongoing patterns of fixed referencing, and release us from roles that are no
longer ‘comfortable’, or helpful. Speech can be used to seed intent into our
fields of experience, giving growth to budding, and then strengthening,
awareness and new perspectives. The choice is ours. Do we wish to be imprisoned
in half-asleep living, or wake up and step outside into a more authentic
experience of our lives? There are risks of course, and it’s not really easy,
but if you have tasted deep dissatisfaction with the fictitious illusions that
makes up so-called normal, then you might just be ready to take a plunge into
unknown depths.

Taking on the dialogue

Right
speech is one of the easiest of the Eightfold path elements to relate to. Why?
Because we are constantly engaging in speech, whether externally through
conversation with others, or, through our internal dialogue, which is the
inexhaustible conversation we sustain with ourselves. Speech provides ample
material for us to work with as meditators and in order to pursue more
constructive speech, the instructions are simple. The challenge for us, however,
is to make the instructions fit our world, and our ongoing and unfolding
experience. For Right Speech to become a path and a strategy for change, its
basic fourfold ethical basis has to be applied with discipline and consistency.

Firstly,
we need to experience and recognise personally how we actively engage in the
four misuses of our voice, as well as get clearer on the intent that is behind
our habitual speech patterns. As early Buddhism displays, lists can be very
useful. Making your own list on when, why and how can be very useful as a basis
for further action. In order to arrive at the point where these patterns become
clearly visible, we need to continue in our practice of meditation so that
awareness increases, and so that we can bring awareness into dialogues. Then,
we simply need to ask ourselves some pertinent questions and leave enough space
for honest and frank answers to emerge. The following might be a good start;

How,
where and when do I currently lie?

What
forms do the habits of falsification take in my external speech?

How
and when do I speak badly about others?

How
do I needlessly pour out negative speech, especially in key relationships?

How
do I unload my negativity onto others and the spaces I inhabit through being
unnecessarily harsh and critical?

Do
I use sarcasm or cynicism as a form of suspicion to create distance?

How
do I waste time, my vitality, and integrity by engaging in nonsense chatter?

Speech
is the first of the Eightfold path that deliberately and unavoidably involves
us meeting the external world and is where we bridge the gap between our
meditational and positional practice (development of view), and our
interactions with others.

When
we communicate, our energy meets the external world and makes an impact, and it
does so, whether we are aware of it or not. Unfortunately, our relationship
with speech is often similar to that of a litter-bug who carelessly discards
rubbish, wrappings, cigarette butts and other shit into random environments
without a care for the result. So, through the development of Mindfulness, we
also develop spatial awareness and the ability to connect the dots between our
movements throughout the day, in order to drop less linguistic litter.

Right
Speech is a calling to be aware and mindful of how our speech IS action, and
HOW it affects the world around us. Right Speech implores us to take
responsibility for our communication and be aware of the impact it has on the
people we meet and its place in the wider context of a more harmonious and
transparent society. Unsurprisingly, there is a requirement that we clean up
our contribution to the collective confusion that permeates so much
communication. And yes, Right Speech should be applied to Facebook and Twitter!

Inner & Outer speech;
two into one

We
mustn’t lose sight of and ignore the internal dimension of this element of the
path. From my own personal readings I have found scant attention paid to the
effect our internal dialogue has on our state of being and the movement from
our thinking to external action.

We
often hide in our thoughts, keeping secrets, keeping cosy aspects of our
character, our more and less desirous selves, hidden away inside our heads,
confined to the walls of our inner safe house. Speech often acts as a means for
maintaining the separation we feel and sustain from the rest of the world. Some
thoughts are not to be shared. Whether filled with doubt and insecurity, or
arrogance and a sense of privilege, our attitude is expressed through the quality
of our distorted speech, which is often false speech. Whether our own brand of
self preservation is based on a perception of ourselves as small and
unimportant, or as special, better and more worthy, the underlying theme is the
same. They are strategies of self-preservation that maintain masks, which we
may use consciously, or be totally identified with.

Internal
and external speech are not separate, so although distinguishing between the
two is helpful at first in order to develop clarity, establishing a more fluid
and explicit relationship between inner and outer content will eventually
function as a method for increasing open, honest and frank communication. This
involves necessary confrontation with our habit of bullshitting ourselves, of
kidding ourselves and seducing ourselves with promises and excuses: ‘I couldn’t
possibly tell Franco what I think of him.’ ‘If I tell my mum she’s horrible to
her sister, it would destroy our relationship,’ ‘Why won’t Sarah shut up, she’s
so annoying! It’s not worth it though, she’ll never change.’

Right
speech needs to progress from a form of discipline and discovery, into an
alignment between the inner and outer. Our speech needs to become not just
honest but a reflection of what is really going on inside of us; basically we
need to become more transparent. The separation between the illusions and roles
we maintain and the internal stories we tell ourselves, at some point must be
abandoned. This results in a greater degree of authenticity when maintained with
consistency. The simplicity of ‘what you see is what you get’ becomes a means
for more conscious engagement. It is a much saner starting place from
which to evolve.

I
have personally found speaking out fears, insecurities, hidden desires and
wishes, to be exceptionally liberating. Such experiences were often lived as
reactions, or as blockages- places where we got stuck in the past and where
speech/energy was not expressed. Learning to move that energy out through speaking
it out, releases us from being bound to historic episodes of our life’s story.
This equates to gaining considerable freedom as well as increased emotional and
mental vitality. These non-movements often fossilize inside and until they are
allowed to move out again, they act as internal structures that divert and
subvert energy and self-expression.

What
I’m discussing here is the possibility of increasing transparency, of opening
up our personal Pandora’s box to see what is hidden inside, to open and to
share more of our basic humanity and liberate trapped energy. All of this is
part of communication; part of the ebb and flow of our moment to moment
interaction with consciousness.

Authenticity

Telling
the truth can actually become expressing the truth. Our speech, our body, our
movement and our subjective experience are not separate; they are intertwined.
To express the truth means our body does not hide our feelings, our speech does
not hide our thoughts and our action does not hide our true intent.

In
a way, this reorganisation of our basic human expression brings us to greater
simplicity. When we unravel our games of hide and seek, we become capable of
standing more openly with others as we are, without pretence, without an agenda.
We are clear. This gives rise to more authentic living and self-expression, and
naturally leads to a capacity to engage in the various forms of positive
speech. Our authenticity allows us to express more honestly felt kindness,
unpolluted by ulterior needs. And when needs arise, we simply express them as
they are without obsessing about results.

One
of the major blocks to this sane modality is the conditioning we have with
regards to exchanges in relationships. Whether it’s emotional, informational,
knowledge, skills, support, help, requests, instructions, and so forth, speech
often expresses within it, through linguistic forms, intonation and flow, the
affirmation of the roles that are often taken on in basic give-and-take
dynamics, which are heavily bound up in power play. This can be recognised in
how we adopt a specific voice, or intonation with a parent, or with a partner,
how we speak more quietly, or loudly with a colleague, or boss. It can be
recognised in how we end up having the same types of conversations with the
same types of people again and again that so often determine the state we find
ourselves in during and after. This is a major facet of living in reaction to
life. These false exchanges create co-dependency and rob us of our
autonomy.

Gaining
authenticity, transparency and simplicity means coming into Right Relationship
with the world and is expressed in great part through our speech.

Thursday, 3 May 2012

Falsification and fabrication lie at the heart of
wrong speech. Together with destructiveness and cruelty they make up the dark
edges that mark unmindful and unhelpful speech. Truth and authenticity instead
are integral features of Right Speech along with modes of communication that
engender understanding and harmony. In practising the Eightfold path, Right
Speech marks a clear step off of the meditation cushion and into action. It
marks a deliberate engagement with the world and therefore it contains a strong
ethical dimension in order to give rise to a more responsible relationship with
the world. As with any facet of spiritual development, it is useful to have
some guidelines to keep us on the straight and narrow and assist us in avoiding
potential pitfalls that may accompany the process of opening and awakening to a
fuller and freer experience of life. Right Speech along with Right Action
reminds us that our actions count. Maturity is a key theme and however evolved
a person might seem to be, or feel themselves to be, maturity is an ongoing
process of becoming more responsible and more responsive to the ongoing
conditions we face.

Whether we are capable of carrying Right Speech
into our day-to-day lives is dependent on our ability to align our
communication with a form of Right View and Right Intention; both discussed in
earlier posts. In order to discover more authentic and transparent modes of
communication we need to establish a clear and workable intent, which if we are
Buddhist, should ideally emerge from the desire to end confusion and suffering,
as well as reduce our contribution to the global mess in all its myriad forms.
Even if you’re not a Buddhist, such an intent is noble and perhaps worthy of
your attention all the same. Starting with more modest intents is ok too and a
simple wish to be less argumentative is a fine place to start.

If you’re motivated to work with your speech, know
that a clear, self-generated and personalised intent to ‘cut the crap’ will be
paramount in creating any lasting change to indulgent habits. Habits are by
their nature impulsive, changing them will require discipline and commitment.
Both qualities developed on the cushion.

The two primary elements in approaching this
practice are;

1. Working with our
actual experience

2. Deciding what is
helpful?

Any subsequent elaboration of Right Speech would be
well placed in relation to these two considerations in a pragmatic model. Right
Speech continues in the way of dual activity having at its centre the
renunciation of specific forms of speech and a dedication to actively using
speech in a proactive and unitive way. These are the outer disciplines.

Traditionally Right Speech is presented as a form
of ethical discipline in which we refrain from the Four Negative Speech
Factors. The motivation for doing so is given in terms of karmic retribution
and future rebirth and great precision is given to determining the exact amount
of negative karma accumulated. This comes across as a rather abstract
prescription for prohibited oral behaviour that is likely to be far from
motivating in this day and age, especially for the sceptics among us. What’s
more likely to be useful is establishing a more conscious and explorative
relationship with our speech within the simple framework provided.

Early Buddhism loves lists and these can be very
useful if we are willing to play with the language a little so that they
resonate with our own experience. They remind us to make sure that we are
including an array of elements into practice and for those happy doing their
own thing, it can be useful to take such rudimentary reminders that perhaps
there is a little more work to do, and in the case of speech, additional areas
to bring into our practice. This list advises us to cut out the following
Negative Speech Factors;

1. False speech

2. Slanderous speech

3. Harsh speech

4. Idle chatter

At first glance these four may actually seem
doable, relatively easy to nail. We might even have the impression that apart
from a few white lies, we are generally on the right track as far as speech is
concerned, and of course we haven’t committed any major transgressions of late,
in fact, in ages. Well, if that is the case, then great. But do know that this
area of practice runs deeper than mere conjunctions to avoid bad behaviour.
Speech is intimately bound with our ability to be authentically present (More
on this later).

Meanwhile, for the rest of us, exploring our own
inclinations to lie, speak shit about others, be unduly nasty, and chit chat away
the hours of the day can be both revelatory and disappointing.

‘Create space from the dynamic of negative action
and speech’

Traditionally then Right Speech is a list of Dos
and Don’ts. As a starting place and a basis for relating to how we communicate,
they are excellent principles to follow. Lying clearly causes all manner of
problems in intimate relationships, at work and between friends. Speaking badly
about others increases misunderstanding and divisiveness. Unloading our anger
and being abusive of others is cruel and hurtful. Idle chatter keeps us in
circles of delusional nonsense, distracted and focused on frivolous
entertainment.

Reducing our participation in these modalities of
speech is advisable and balancing. With any negative behaviour there is a
hidden gain though and success with addressing these four arenas of poor
speech will depend in part, in the long-term, on recognising the hidden gain
and either releasing it, or finding a healthier and more constructive way of
addressing it. This is an aspect of maturity.

What unifies these four forms of unhelpful speech
is not a forced morality that we should carry about on our person as a point of
pride. Instead what we find is that the basic principles of presence and
harmony are essential to speaking in a more balanced manner and that this can
only emerge if we are willing to take responsibility for the impact our speech
has on the world around us and own that impact. This is another aspect of maturity.

Our ability to be present in any given moment is
dependent on multiple factors; one of these is coming into harmony with what is
present, which is entering into alignment with what is taking place. It means
seeing the situations in our life as workable and of enough importance to
warrant our presence and active participation.

Working with the four areas of speech can help us
see more directly into why they need to be changed. Bringing mindfulness into
our speech can give us direct insight into the dispersive nature of much of our
communication so that we can decide for ourselves what adjustments are
important and a priority.

Right Speech offers simple guidelines for us to
examine the quality of how we are putting our energy and influence into the
world and the spaces we occupy.

Pages

About Me

I'm a Life Coach, Core Shamanic Counsellor and meditation teacher to boot. I also teach English in Trieste, Italy. I follow a non-traditional expression of Buddhism and also run occasional events over the border from Trieste in Slovenia on Shamanism. Email me if you're curious about any of these activities.

Benvenuti (welcome)

This blog started out as an experiment. It continues to be such to this day. The opinions you will find in these pages are my own, and like all material on this Earth, are subject to change due to that hidden factor of impermanence.

This blog started out as an experiment. Writing is an art and one which I am only now starting to develop any capacity in. All of my writing constitutes a learning process in the presentation of ideas, opinions and experience. I am no expert, but I am doing my best to develop and learn from each piece I publish.

This blog started out as an experiment. I've no idea where it will end up. I explore Buddhist and Shamanic themes in this blog. Both areas which interest a fairly small percentage of Western society. Therefore this blog is quite specialist. It goes one step further by not representing any particular tradition in either of these spiritual arenas, although I have grounding in two shamanic worlds; one a path, the other an approach to counselling. My experience of Buddhism is primarily within the Tibetan and Theravada traditions.